Petron

by Blaze Ward

  That was the threat that would penetrate her rage. Asra took a deep breath and let her shoulder blades touch the back of the chair again.

  She could always just go straight across the table and break Bedrov’s neck if she had to.

  “Listening,” she managed in a voice that might have been human enough to qualify.

  “Are you?” Bedrov snapped, finally showing real anger. “Because this is not just your future, Neon Pink. This is the future of the kingdom, and maybe the entire, damned galactic fringe. I’m playing a game with gods and I don’t need your shit right now.”

  Neon Pink placed her hands flat on the table and pressed down until the fingertips turned white. Beside her, Rocket Frog was doing the same.

  They were twins. The world worked that way.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Ruin the rest of my day.”

  “Moirrey invented a new device, kid,” Bedrov said. “It is a short-range, short-term JumpSpace disruptor. I won’t bother with the physics right now, but we set one of those off and everything across several light-seconds destabilizes to the point that JumpSails and JumpDrives fail. Period. Neon Pink and Rocket Frog, the Light Strike Wing, no longer work as weapons. Neither do the Fast Strike Bombers I designed for Aquitaine and Fribourg. Hell, standard warships will have to sail out of range to escape the pulse.”

  “How is that even possible?” Saša managed a split second before Asra could say the same thing.

  At least Bedrov’s face turned a little gray around the edges and he took his own deep breath.

  “Let’s just say I’ve seen the future of warfare, Asra,” he offered, a little more quietly.

  She wondered if he was guessing, or really could tell them apart.

  “Rumor says you speak with Gods, Bedrov,” she countered.

  “Kid, you don’t know the half of it,” he sighed. “But if I can talk you two out of killing me right now, there is a whole other future in front of you. It just doesn’t involve flying antique hotrods with JumpDrives.”

  She glanced over at her awesomely identical other half and got enough of a nod to count.

  “So now what, old man?” She couldn’t resist sticking the knife in a little, even if she would have to settle for only a little blood instead of an artery.

  “So now I want to ambush the first Aquitaine fleet that decides to come here and mess with us,” Bedrov said. “Ainsley’s been helping me implement some trouble, but I need your help next.”

  Asra looked over at the one-time Command Flight Centurion who had retired and gone into business with the pirate. And even got along well enough with the man’s two other ex-wives, if the rumor mill was to be believed.

  “These two nuts have come up with something new,” Ainsley began. “Again. Impractical, but utterly destabilizing to the current military status quo across all star empires. I need someone completely crazy enough to fly it. Do I have your attention, yet?”

  Asra nodded. She could feel a grin of feral anticipation, but held it inside. If this group wanted her and her sister involved, whatever it was would be just beyond the bleeding edge of crazy. Out where Neon Pink and Rocket Frog routinely flew.

  For the briefest moment, Asra wondered how long it would be until Cho Nakamura, Pops’ real daughter and their adopted big sister, finally finished her gig flying for Aquitaine. Or if this new war would see the woman grounded and maybe exiled, rather than risk her flying from a Republic carrier again. Shit sounded like things were bad out there.

  Ainsley studied both of them for a moment longer. Somehow, it didn’t feel weird that the four women in the room were the warriors and the two men qualified as support staff. That hadn’t been the Corynthe way.

  At least not until Jessica and Wiley.

  “Good,” da Vinci said. It wasn’t the voice of Ainsley Barret. This was the scout pilot badass from Auberon talking now. da Vinci. “What Uly is building for us are a pair of Light GunShips.”

  “Light GunShips?” Asra repeated, somewhat at a loss.

  The words suggested something huge.

  GunShips, at least in the Aquitaine Navy, had whole crews. Weapon turrets. JumpDrives, even. Just about the exact opposite of what the sisters had been flying for eight years.

  “Oh, you’ll still be flying stripped-down hotrods, girls,” da Vinci assured them with a hard smile. “But these will be more like what Eel used to fly, before that boy finally retired.”

  “That’s an E-2 in Republic service,” Saša offered. “They have lots of them.”

  “That they do,” Barret smiled. “Yan and friends have topped that.”

  “Oh?” Asra felt the gravitational pull of exotic tugging at her toes.

  And crazy.

  “We’ve figured out how to Pulse a Type-3,” Bedrov said quietly. “Like the Type-1.”

  Asra wasn’t sure if the surge of adrenaline in her lower belly was what true love felt like, or if it was just pure lust. It was certainly something.

  “Okay, really listening this time,” she managed.

  “You, by yourself, with a centerlined cannon,” da Vinci said. “Just enough equipment for shields, engines, and gyros. It will not carry a short-range JumpDrive, but later designs will. Instead, we’re adding twelve launch rails with missiles. You’ll carry nothing but slaughter missiles for now, light weapons designed for defense against incoming missile fire. If they send an Expeditionary force against us, you won’t even need those, because there are so few missile launchers on those classes. Eventually, they’ll have to send old-style carriers if they want to overwhelm us that way.”

  “Why?” Asra asked, trying to encompass everything in one word.

  “The age of the StarFighter is functionally over, Asra,” Pops explained. “We’re getting ahead of everyone else and trying to build the sort of fleet necessary to destroy what they’ll have to do, after we snooker them this once and make them pay a hefty cost for trying their luck today.”

  “So we’re your test pilots?” Saša asked.

  “You are,” da Vinci nodded, all business. “If the design works, the next version adds a Type-1-Pulse in a turret, a second crew member in a rear living compartment, and a JumpSail, so that a force of such vessels could become a roving wolfpack, in the company of a supply ship carrier that looks more like a stripper with a cargo pod than a 4-ring MotherShip.”

  “So we’re still pirate babes?” Asra confirmed. “And still the law, coming for your pirate asses, depending on the day?”

  “That, too,” Wiley spoke up now. “And when the Republic comes, we’ll be the dread avengers, coming for their souls.”

  That surge of energy was definitely good. Love, lust, whatever.

  Power.

  And if the future was here today, then who better to lead the rest of these sorry dweebs into it?

  Asra looked over at Saša and got her nod.

  “We’re in,” she said. “Who do we need to kill?”

  “The first bastard who comes over that hill, Asra,” Bedrov said darkly. “And he will be coming soon.”

  CHAPTER LIII

  IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF JESSICA KELLER, QUEEN OF THE PIRATES: AUGUST THE FIRST AT 2218 SVATI PRIME

  JESSICA HAD MOVED herself and Commander Li down to Archangel’s Flag Bridge as soon as the force left St. Legier. She missed having Enej here, where the man frequently anticipated her maneuvers almost as well as Denis had.

  Today, her former Flag Centurion was off teaching his expertise at the Academy, where another generation of bureaucrats could come to understand that their job was just as important as the fire-breathing warriors. That it was always a team effort, and the whole team needed to stay in constant, clear contact to act as one.

  With Enej, she had been able to run an entire battle fleet as efficiently as she once had her squadron with Brightoak, Vigilant, and Rubicon.

  Jakob Li wasn’t quite that good, but he was still exceptional at his task, and the six weeks sail to this station had begun to teach the man the subtle thin
gs he needed to know about her to help control such an oddball squadron.

  “Thirty seconds to Emergence, Admiral,” he said now, unnecessarily as they were both watching the clock, but it was always better to do things precise and by the book. “All hands at battle stations and prepared.”

  “Hopefully, I won’t have to do anything mean to the locals this time,” she smiled at the man.

  Li laughed quietly, as did several others around the outside of the room.

  2218 Svati Prime. The place where it really all started.

  At Third Iger, she hadn’t been in command, but had managed to save the carriers from being ambushed when Bogdan Loncar committed one of the greatest blunders of the modern age.

  After her Court Martial, Nils had given her Auberon, and a mission to light the Cahllepp Frontier on fire.

  The galaxy had never been the same after that. Would never be.

  If she was successful today, she would be changing the lives of generations yet unborn.

  Hopefully, it would be for the better.

  “Emergence complete,” Li said quietly. Unnecessarily.

  Something about these old ships made it even more obvious to her old bones when they transitioned.

  That, or Kali-ma herself was listening to the change of harmonics as a ship descended out of the mountains and onto the plain of battle.

  Or perhaps she should call them the Plains of Megiddo.

  The place history called Armageddon.

  The tabletop came live with information. Navigational data. Ships in orbit and transit. Defensive forces preparing to scramble, if this squadron proved to be an enemy.

  “Squadron flag transmitted, Admiral,” Li smiled. “Awaiting reply from the station. One anomaly in system orbit.”

  “Who?” she asked as his hand tapped on a lone icon, trailing the main orbital station but close enough to communicate in real time.

  “IFV Achterberg is here, Admiral,” Li said. “Presumably waiting for us?”

  “Shouldn’t be,” Jessica mused. “Admiral’s compliments and contact them directly for whatever orders they have while the local commander gets organized. I cannot imagine Tom waiting for us, but he might have sent them as a messenger.”

  “Right away, Admiral.”

  What could be that important?

  CHAPTER LIV

  IMPERIAL FOUNDING: 183/08/01. BC ARCHANGEL, 2218 SVATI PRIME

  REIF RATHER ENJOYED the way he was piped aboard the old IFV Archangelsk. An Imperial admiral coming aboard a warship in service was normally a complicated thing, with a long book of formal steps and procedures to follow.

  Here, the men had taken their writ as newly-commissioned pirates perhaps a little more seriously than Tom and Emmerich might have expected. It wasn’t much. Little things along the edges that stood out, like every single marine in line wearing combat armor today rather than the dress uniforms the book called for here. Or the number of knives added to random belts as he was escorted through the corridors.

  Nothing detrimental to good discipline, but it suggested a loosening of mental strictures in such a way that they might not be tightenable again at a later date.

  Queen Jessica, no doubt, already recruiting a new crop of sailors and pirates to uphold her Crown, with the assistance of Aquitaine’s worst enemy.

  What would the future bring?

  Still, Reif smiled to himself as he was escorted through the corridors. The men still stood aside and nodded with a smile as he passed, but they had changed from the sorts of dour, serious sailors he had just left behind on Achterberg.

  The commander led him to Jessica’s flag bridge and departed. Her and her Flag Commander retired with him to an office and the three of them sat.

  He missed having Marcelle Travere around. Nobody made coffee like that woman had. The liquid he was served today was several hours old and straight out of a samovar, rather than handmade. Hopefully, that might add some edge of malice to the men when it came time for battle, that they had to drink crappy coffee all the time, and not the good stuff Jessica always seemed to have handy.

  “You’re awfully reticent, Reif,” she said as the steward withdrew, leaving them with full cups.

  “Thinking about bad coffee,” he offered vaguely.

  “Yes, I miss her, too,” Jessica said with a forlorn nod. “But she’s doing well on Petron and fully retired now. Threatening to write an autobiography that shows what it was like to stand in my background for all those years.”

  “That would probably be a pretty good addition to Em’s works, all things considered,” Reif offered.

  “Don’t you tempt her,” Jessica smiled. “I have too many secrets that should probably stay buried until I am.”

  Reif laughed. Commander Li seemed to relax some, realizing that Reif and Jessica must be old friends, having served together under such complicated circumstances before.

  “So what’s Tom up to?” she asked.

  “He took Indi and reversed course back to Denis,” Reif said. “They’ll hold the Cahllepp Frontier and the near edge of Salonnia as a fleet while you do your work. Orders are running every which way, treating the war footing as a done deal, until Aquitaine backs down and apologizes. That means they’ve got your back, so I volunteered to bring Achterberg here, since they missed the great battle at Ballard and have never forgiven themselves.”

  “Good,” she said. “We’re going to load up the cargo pod as full as we can get it, and the two transports. Every ship will be overloaded with supplies as well, so I can make a cross-over strike.”

  Reif felt his ears perk up. Jessica Keller’s famous Raid had started with what she called a cross-over strike. From deep in Aquitaine space to this very system 2218 Svati Prime, without the usual careful sailing to maintain unit cohesion.

  Pick a spot in enemy space as a rendezvous, and everyone sails directly there, rather than dropping out every few days to stay organized. It gave you surprise, at a risk.

  Achterberg had gotten lost on such a mission, failing before she could reach Ballard to join the Red Admiral’s legendary assault. Reif had wondered if the margins on that day had been thin enough that one additional Imperial frigate might have made the difference.

  Except that he had since met Alber’ d’Maine, Robertson Aeliaes, Tomas Kigali, and Denis Jež. Achterberg, for all her martial traditions, might not have mattered in the face of that team.

  “Who are we hitting?” Reif asked carefully.

  Jessica paused to stare right at Commander Li before she spoke. Reif noted that the man turned a little white around the edges under that intense stare before he nodded.

  “Nobody outside this room is aware of this information,” she stated in a bald, cold threat that Reif thought might be a little overblown, but the man was probably still a relative stranger to Jessica, as opposed to the man who had commanded her flagship during the last parts of the Winter War. “We’re hitting Ramsey cold.”

  Reif nearly swallowed his tongue in surprise. He did the math in his head, balancing Jessica’s Assault Fleet against what was likely to be arrayed on the defensive side.

  She must know something.

  “I would think we don’t normally have enough firepower to do that, Jessica,” Reif began carefully. “Not unless we brought in a couple of Tom’s cruisers. What am I missing?”

  “All those war contingency plans, both Aquitaine’s and Lincolnshire’s, have been in my safe for more than a decade, Reif,” she smiled. “What gets reinforced. How much. How soon.”

  “And they won’t have changed it?” Li asked, aghast.

  “I’m sure they will, to some extent,” Jessica nodded. “Grantham is going to be a major nexus point for the Salonnian front, just as 2862 Sceptri and 3374 Rohini will be the two bases most likely to be reinforced for a major push against David and Corynthe. Note that the few campaign plans that envisioned a two-front war such as this called for a defensive moat facing Salonnia for a time, while raids crossed into Corynthe and forced t
he pirates to back off first, where they might later fall out on one another and start the sort of civil war that’s never far from a pirate’s heart.”

  “What’s changed this time?” Li asked, his voice growing firmer now.

  Reif guessed that the man had realized what a priceless opportunity to learn had been handed to him, and was finally starting to use it.

  “Everything they have planned will assume one of the Imperial border squadrons,” Jessica said. “Or a small MotherShip formation making the sorts of piracy raids they normally do, but several of them together, rather than a single predator out hunting for stray sheep. They will not be able to account for a Home Fleet squadron making a fast sail, especially if Karl VIII is trying to keep this contained elsewhere.”

  “And we aren’t Home Fleet anymore,” Li nodded. “Just a random pirate fleet that showed up on your doorstep.”

  “Black swan,” Reif corrected him before turning to Jessica. “One shot surprise?”

  “Oh, no, Reif,” she smiled. “I leased this entire fleet for a period of years, with an option to purchase later. Casey’s paying the crews for two years, and I’ll only be responsible for payroll after that. This is a game-changing fleet, this far out, because it will force everyone else to change all of their assumptions and plans. Salonnia will damned sure mind their manners with me after this, as well as Lincolnshire, because Archangel puts their systems at risk, too.”

  “Okay,” Reif nodded. “Where can I serve?”

  “I’ve got a heavy element at the core, with an old Capital-class battlecruiser in this ship, plus T-243 hauling a modern battle pod. I can take on anything less than a heavy dreadnaught. The three War Destroyers are a good flank force, as are the five D-27 boats. If I go with a standard, Imperial formation, that’s three rings of a small fleet waddling up to punch someone.”

  “Which might be the dumbest idea I’ve heard all week,” Reif chuckled. “They might fall for it, if they didn’t realize it was you, but why risk it? Which wing are you more likely to slash with?”